Microresonator Solitons in Quantum Cascade Lasers
Abstract
This research will create the first soliton sources of long-wavelength light on a chip. Solitons are pulses of light that do not change their shapes when propagating. Unlike lasers, they contain many colors, have high powers, and exist for only the briefest periods of time. At the longwave-infrared and terahertz wavelength bands, solitons could be used to make new sensors capable of mapping chemical concentrations, to measure the distance of distant objects, and to see through opaque materials. However, no compact soliton sources are currently available in these bands. This is because the main sources of light in this range—quantum cascade lasers—are incapable of forming solitons. Instead of forming pulses, they are frequency-modulated, like an FM radio signal. Though they are still useful, they are not as useful as pulsed sources, which are more like an AM radio signal. This work will overcome this challenge by instead creating the first microresonator frequency combs based on quantum cascade lasers. Microresonator combs are optical devices created by pumping extremely high-quality rings with a conventional laser. This allows them to generate solitons. Typically, these rings are made from extremely clear glass that does not absorb any light, but this does not work at long wavelengths since no glass is clear enough combs at these wavelengths. Instead, we will make them out of the same material that is used to make quantum cascade lasers. This will allow us to generate solitons, which we will use to perform several relevant sensing applications. In particular, we will use them to detect the presence of trace concentrations of chemicals—which will be useful as explosive sensors—and will use them to detect the distance of remote objects—which will be useful in applications like self-driving cars.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2021
- Source ID
- FA95502010192
Entities
People
- David Burghoff
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- University of Notre Dame